HUMILITY ....A LOST ART

There was a time before the “you can do anything” promoters in this world that humility was actually considered a desirable characteristic. A time before the heavyweight fighter, Muhammad Ali, proclaimed that he was the greatest and we all began to make similar claims. We were told and taught to believe that there was nothing that we could not accomplish if we just set our minds to the task before us ….and that it was okay; no, it was mandatory that we tell everyone just how great we were and how we deserve the very best of everything. That thinking has corrupted our younger generation and has left them gasping for breath as they race around in life trying to have it all.

The Bible speaks at great length to extol the virtues of humility …and it’s a word that is timely for all of us today. From the wisdom of Solomon in Proverbs 15:33, we read, “The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.” And in just the next chapter, Solomon continues to instruct us in verse 18, when he says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Haughty is a word we don’t hear very much anymore because it defames our character. When we take a closer look at what it means, words like proud, arrogant, conceited, snooty, stuck-up, overconfident and high and mighty come to mind ….and those are words that no one likes to have associated with them and their character. No, no one wants to think of themselves as haughty or as Paul admonishes in Romans 12:3, “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned.”

So that brings us back to humility….how do we get it and how can we hang on to it? In James 4: 6, we read that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble and then in verse 10, he tells us to “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”

Humble ourselves before the Lord…. the Creator of the Universe, the GREAT I AM, the ALPHA and the OMEGA, the BEGINNING and the END, the Name above EVERY Name. How could we NOT humble ourselves before our Maker?

Haughty or Humble…..the choice is yours? More tomorrow on how to be humble!

Blessed and Believing,
WPQ